A) From Propertius 2.1:
But if only fate had so endowed me, Maecenas, that my Muse could lead a hero's hands to arms, I should not sing of Titans or Ossa piled on Olympus that Pelion might become the path to heaven; or of ancient Thebes, or Pergamum [= Troy], Homer's glory, and the union of two seas at Xerxes' command, or the early reign of Remus or the fury of lofty Carthage, the Cimbrian menace and the splendid feats of Marius: I should tell of your Caesar's wars and policies, and after mighty Caesar you would be my second theme. …But neither would the slender utterance of Callimachus suffice to thunder forth the battle waged on Phlegra's plain between Jove and Enceladus, nor are my powers fitted to enshrine in martial strains the name of Caesar among his Phrygian ancestors. The sailor tells of winds, the ploughman of oxen; the soldier counts his wounds, the shephard his sheep; I for my part wage wars within the narrow confines of the bed. (Trans. G. P. Goold, Harvard University Press, 1990)

B) Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis 1036-1097
What wedding-hymn was that which raised its strains
to the sound of Libyan flutes,
to the music of the dancer's lyre,
and the note of the pipe of reeds?
It was on the day Pieria's fair-tressed choir
came over the slopes of Pelion
to the marriage-feast of Peleus,
beating the ground
with print of golden sandals at the banquet of the gods,
and hymning in dulcet strains the praise of Thetis and the son of Aeacus,
over the Centaurs' hill,
down through the woods of Pelion.

There was the Dardanian boy,
Phrygian Ganymede,
beloved pleasure of Zeus' bed,
drawing off the wine
he mixed in the depths of golden bowls;
while, along the gleaming sand,
the fifty daughters of Nereus
graced the marriage with their dancing [khoros],
circling in a whirling ring.

There came too the revel-rout of Centaurs, mounted on horses,
to the feast of the gods
and the mixing-bowl of Bacchus, leaning on fir-trees,
with wreaths of green foliage round their heads;
and loudly they shouted out. "Daughter of Nereus,
that you shall bear a son, a dazzling light to Thessaly,
Cheiron the prophet,
skilled in arts inspired by Phoebus,
foretold,
a son who shall come with an army of spearmen
to the far-famed land of Priam,
to set it in a blaze,
his body cased
in a suit of golden
armor forged by Hephaestus,
a gift from his goddess-mother,
Thetis, who bore him."
Then the gods shed a blessing
on the marriage of the high-born bride,
who was first of Nereus' daughters,
and on the wedding of Peleus.

But you [Iphigeneia], will the Argives crown,
wreathing the lovely tresses of your hair,
like a dappled mountain hind
brought from some rocky cave
or a heifer undefiled,
and staining with blood your human throat;
though you were never reared like these
amid the piping and whistling of herdsmen,
but at your mother's side,
to be decked one day by her as the bride of a son of Inachus.
Where now does the face of modesty [aidôs] or virtue [aretê]
have any power?
Seeing that unholiness holds sway,
and virtue [aretê] is neglected
by men and thrust behind them,
lawlessness [lack of nomos] over law [nomos] prevailing,
and mortals no longer making common cause [agôn]
to keep the jealousy of gods from reaching them.

C) Catullus 64.31-59
When in full course of time the longed-for day had dawned, all Thessaly assembled and thronged his home, a gladsome company overspreading the halls: they bear gifts to the fore, and their joy in their faces they show. Scyros remains a desert, they leave Phthiotic Tempe, Crannon's homes, and the fortressed walls of Larissa; at Pharsalia they gather, beneath Pharsalian roofs they throng. None tills the soil, the heifers' necks grow softened, the trailing vine is not cleansed by the curved rake-prongs, nor does the bull tear up the clods with the prone-bending plowblade, nor does the sickle prune the shade of the spreading tree-branches, squalid rust steals over the neglected plows.

But this mansion, throughout its innermost recesses of opulent royalty, glitters with gleaming gold and with silver. Ivory makes white the seats; goblets glint on the boards; the whole house delights in the splendour of royal treasure. Placed in the midst of the mansion is the bridal bed of the goddess, made glossy with Indian tusks and covered with purple, tinted with the shell-fish's rosy dye. This tapestry embroidered with figures of men of ancient time portrays with admirable art the heroes' valour. For looking forth from Dia's beach, resounding with crashing of breakers, Ariadne watches Theseus moving from sight with his swift fleet, her heart swelling with raging passion, and she does not yet believe she sees what she sees, as, newly-awakened from her deceptive sleep, she perceives herself, deserted and woeful, on the lonely shore. But the heedless youth, flying away, beats the waves with his oars, leaving his perjured vows to the gusty gales.

D) Catullus 64.116-157
But why, turned aside from my first story, should I recount more, how the daughter fleeing her father's face, her sister's embrace, and even her mother's, who despairingly bemoaned her lost daughter, preferred to all these the sweet love of Theseus; or how borne by their boat to the spumy shores of Dia she came; or how her husband with unmemoried breast forsaking her, left her bound in the shadows of sleep? And oft, so it is said, with her heart burning with fury she poured out clarion cries from depths of her bosom, then sadly scaled the rugged mounts, whence she could cast her glance over the vast seething ocean, then ran into the opposing billows of the heaving sea, raising from her bared legs her clinging raiment, and in uttermost plight of woe with tear-stained face and chilly sobs she spoke thus:--

Is it thus, O perfidious, when dragged from my motherland's shores, is it thus, O false Theseus, that you leave me on this desolate strand? thus do you depart unmindful of slighted godheads, bearing home your perjured vows? Was no thought able to bend the intent of your ruthless mind? had you no clemency there, that your pitiless bowels might show me compassion? But these were not the promises you gave me idly of old, this was not what you bade me hope for, but the blithe bride-bed, hymenaeal happiness: all empty air, blown away by the breezes. Now, now, let no woman give credence to man's oath, let none hope for faithful vows from mankind; for while their eager desire strives for its end, nothing fear they to swear, nothing of promises forbear they: but instantly their lusting thoughts are satiate with lewdness, nothing of speech they remember, nothing of perjuries care. In truth I snatched you from the midst of the whirlpool of death, preferring to suffer the loss of a brother rather than fail your need in the supreme hour, O ingrate. For which I shall be a gift as prey to be rent by wild beasts and the carrion-fowl, nor dead shall I be placed in the earth, covered with funeral mound. What lioness bore you beneath lonely crag? What sea conceived and spued you from its foamy crest? What Syrtis, what grasping Scylla, what vast Charybdis?

E) Catullus 64.192-201
Wherefore you requiters of men's deeds with avenging pains, O Eumenides, whose front enwreathed with serpent-locks blazons the wrath exhaled from your bosom, come here, here, listen to my complaint, which I, sad wretch, am urged to outpour from my innermost marrow, helpless, burning, and blind with frenzied fury. And since in truth they spring from the very depths of my heart, be unwilling to allow my agony to pass unheeded, but with such mind as Theseus forsook me, with like mind, O goddesses, may he bring evil on himself and on his kin.

F) Virgil, Aeneid 4.607-612
You, Sun, who with your flames see all that is done on earth; and Juno, you, interpreter and witness of my sorrows; Hecate, invoked with shrieks, by night, at every city's crossways; and you, the Furies; and the gods that guard the dying Dido - hear these words and turn your power toward my pain; as I deserve, take up my prayers. (trans. A. Mandelbaum, Bantam Books, 1971)

G) Catullus 64.334-375
No house ever yet enclosed such loves, no love bound lovers with such pact, as abides with Thetis, as is the concord of Peleus. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! To you will Achilles be born, a stranger to fear, to his foes known not by his back, but by his strong breast, who, often the victor in the uncertain struggle of the foot-race, will outrun the fire-fleet footsteps of the speedy doe. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! None in war with him may compare as a hero, when the Phrygian streams trickle with Trojan blood, and when besieging the walls of Troy with a long, drawn-out warfare perjured Pelops' third heir lays that city waste. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! Often will mothers attest over funeral-rites of their sons his glorious acts and illustrious deeds, when the white locks from their heads are unloosed amid ashes, and they bruise their discoloured breasts with feeble fists. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! For as the reaper, plucking off the dense wheat-ears before their time, mows the harvest yellowed beneath ardent sun, so will he cast prostrate the corpses of Troy's sons with grim swords. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! His great valour will be attested by Scamander's wave, which ever pours itself into the swift Hellespont, narrowing its course with slaughtered heaps of corpses he shall make tepid its deep stream by mingling warm blood with the water. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! And finally she will be a witness: the captive-maid handed to death, when the heaped-up tomb of earth built in lofty mound receives the snowy limbs of the stricken virgin. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! For instantly fortune will give the means to the war-worn Greeks to break Neptune's stone bonds of the Dardanian city, the tall tomb shall be made dank with Polyxena's blood, who as the victim succumbing beneath two-edged sword, with yielding knees shall fall forward a headless corpse. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles! Come then! Conjoin in the longed-for delights of your love. Let the bridegroom receive his goddess in felicitous compact; let the bride be given to her eager husband. Run, drawing the thread, run, spindles!

 

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